Thursday, June 9, 2011

A Bolaño reading list (and an unexpected bargain)

Over at Conversational Reading, Scott Esposito offers a Roberto Bolaño Reading List, based on the late author's book raves and reviews included in his most recently translated work, a collection of essays called Between Parentheses.

Although the list is compelling, it is sadly not exhaustive, and misses out on one of the books Bolaño most admired, J. Rodolfo Wilcock'sThe Temple of Iconoclasts. But "admired" doesn't sufficiently cover the adulation Bolaño heaped upon The Temple of Iconoclasts. In fact, he called it

without a doubt one of the funniest, most joyful, irreverent, and most corrosive books of the twentieth century.

This is conjecture, but the notable absence of this book from the reading list may be due to Conversational Reading's partnership with Amazon.com (follow the link), which lists the sole new copy of Wilcock's book at a whopping $173.68 and of the nine used copies available, the cheapest will cost you $42.90.

However, there's hope.

If Bolaño's praise of The Temple of Iconoclasts has piqued your interest, but not enough to lead you to dish out (at least) $40, I've got a not-so-secret: we've stocked the book for over a year and, unlike our online competitor, we're selling it at its list price of--wait for it--$14.95.